


Sisterly Care

by RobberBaroness



Series: Darkest Timeline [8]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Bittersweet, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Past Rape/Non-con, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22278235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: Arthur's life is in the hands of his vengeful half-sister.
Series: Darkest Timeline [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598476
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Sisterly Care

Arthur awoke with a start in a luxurious bed. Lynette was pressing a cold cloth to his head, and gave a start herself when he opened his eyes.

“Your Majesty! Oh thank god, I was beginning to think you would never wake up.”

Arthur looked about through hazy eyes, trying to remember how he had gotten where he was. The first thing he saw was that Lynette wasn’t the only woman in the room with him. His half-sister sat nearby, with what looked like a clinical interest on her face.

“Of course he’d wake up, I told you. I wouldn’t be much of a witch if he didn’t.”

“Morgan,” Arthur murmured. “All this time, I knew you cared…”

“Oh, shut up,” she said. “And it wasn’t only me. Lady Lynette is a fine healer, and she’s agreed to stay on as my apprentice in return for shelter for herself and her kinswomen. So if you were worried about all of them, at least you can rest your mind in that area.”

“I didn’t make a deal,” Lynette interjected. “You asked me to be your apprentice and I said yes. Don’t act as if you were doing me a favor. I’m the one who put the same man back together three times in three nights to protect Lyonors’s chastity. I’ve never heard of you doing that.”

“Not to interfere in my sister’s love life, that’s for certain.”

As Morgan and Lynette gently bickered, Arthur did his best to reconstruct the series of events that had brought him to the castle. Suddenly the sequence of events before he’d fallen came rushing back to Arthur- the ambush, the pain of near death, and the horrible sound of his wife crying out. He sat up with a jolt, sending Lynette back with a gasp of surprise.

“Guinevere! I need to find her!”

“You’re not going anywhere until your fever breaks,” said Morgan. “Besides, we’re not entirely sure where she is. She could have been taken back to the castle, or hidden somewhere else for exactly this reason. You don’t happen to have something of hers on your person? A token, a lock of hair?”

Morgan sighed when her brother was silent.

“No one ever does. Your best chance for saving her life is to save your own. Send word to your men of where you are, and I would appreciate the added message that Morgan and her women are not to be harmed. I can defend my castle, but I would really rather not have to.”

“She was in the forest when they took her,” Arthur was murmuring, not paying attention to a word Morgan said. “They can be tracked, I’m sure. What time is it? How much time had they had? How far can they have gotten?”

“I said, you’re not going anywhere! Do you think Guinevere wants you to come charging after her in a state of near death, without your sword, and fall down with infected wounds before Mordred’s men even have time time to cut you? I’m trying to save you both!”

“Why have you saved me at all, then?” he snapped. “You’ve tried to kill me in the past. What moved your heart to mercy this time?”

Morgan pursed her lips and gave what might have been called a glare if it weren’t so close to her usual expression.

“Several things. I’m angrier with my nephew at the moment than I am with you. Seeing you helpless does have a sympathetic effect on a sister. And because my own inaction is partly responsible for this whole calamity. I have to show you something. Can you walk?”

Arthur moved to his feet unsteadily. Morgan might have been right- perhaps he did not have the strength to go anywhere- but damned if he was going to remain lying down at a time like this.

“Lynette, help him. In my defense, even if I had shown it to you in the past you would have believed I was lying about its creation...but at least you might have been forewarned.”

Morgan swept through the door and Arthur followed her, leaning on Lynette as little as possible.

“I had Lancelot in my castle once,” Morgan was saying. “I thought it would be amusing to seduce him, but he was utterly uninterested. Insulting, yes, but I can take a few blows to my pride.”

She opened a door to another bedroom.

“This is what made me throw him out.”

If he were being honest, Arthur would have admitted that he’d always known his friend was prone to violent fits. And of course he had admired Guinevere’s beauty, what man did not? But if he had known what was in Morgan’s guest room, he never would have allowed Lancelot to so much as look at his wife, much less be alone in a room with her.

The walls were covered with charcoal sketches of Guinevere. Some were of her face in profile, some were like shadows in her shape, some were simply of a delicate ringed hand. Some could have been shown in polite company. Some could not. Perhaps it was the fever Morgan had spoken of, but Arthur could feel his heart pounding and his skin burning. He was going to bring back methods of torture and execution he had personally outlawed for when he got his hands on Lancelot.

“Quite honestly,” said Morgan, “I thought he was going to try and kill you in a jealous rage, and that suited me perfectly well. But we never get what we want in this life, do we?”

Arthur could not speak in response. He would only have been able to scream. 

“I’m not going to apologize for not warning you about Mordred,” Morgan added. “You should have figured that one out on your own.”

Lynette gripped him with greater force, as if afraid her King would collapse on his own. But Arthur stood strong. Perhaps the searing heat also brought about a sort of clarity and purpose with it.

“You kept these drawings,” he said at last. “You could have destroyed them.”

“Yes. I don’t really know why I didn’t. For a time I considered using them as blackmail material, or deliberately showing you to hurt you. But I did neither. Maybe the whole room felt too cursed to touch. Maybe there was a part of me that did want to warn you and Guinevere and didn’t want to admit it. But you can’t count that in my favor because I never did anything either way.”

She shrugged.

“I’m not a good person. It’s far too late to apologize for that, even if I wanted to. But I wish I could at least apologize to Guinevere for having been too angry over a social slight to warn her that she was in danger.”

“You will help me find her, then.” It was not a question, but the closest thing to a command Arthur had ever given his sister.

“As best I can, yes. I can’t help you much with avenging Lancelot’s betrayal until he’s been found as well, though I suppose I could provide you with a poisoned blade or something. And I won’t kill Mordred for you, either. But I’m not your enemy anymore, or Guinevere’s, if only because this whole pointless rivalry has come to feel as empty as it always really was."

“Then are we allies now?”

“We’re not allies,” Morgan said. “We’re family.”

**Author's Note:**

> "While he is Morgan’s prisoner, Lancelot paints pictures of the affair with Guinevere; these will later (in the Mort Artu) be shown to King Arthur by Morgan, who only then will realize that the rumours he heard from his knights are true. "
> 
> -The Lancelot-Grail Project
> 
> That’s weird, right? I’m not the only one who finds that weird?


End file.
